Things are moving along nicely on The Purge Season 2 Episode 2.
While the NFFA might have created The Purge to ensure the safety of their citizens in the long-term, it’s starting to seem a lot more sinister.
Victims spend copious amounts of time trying to get over their harrowing ordeals while future Purgers spend that time planning their next Purge. If the idea was to create harmony for 364 days of the year, that was a #FAIL.
Esme got called to task about her investigation into Drew’s disappearance. She may be the best tagger in the district, but it’s still uncool to do your own thing on the government’s dime (and without their approval).
But, geez, it seems awfully difficult to maneuver within the system. The 12-hour Purge creates a lot of questions, but it seems like there are even more when you start thinking about all of the time not spent Purging.
Ryan and his gang of bank robbers seem to have been at it for years. And all of those saran-wrapped stacks of cash only added up to two hundred grand if I understood their conversation.
Could it have been two hundred million? Because the earlier is a rather paltry amount to put so much on the line.
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Everyone has bills to pay and reasons for turning to felonies on Purge Night, and Ryan gets all of the money he needs to keep his mother in care from that one job.
Given the amount of money they get, it would be best to use it to take the sting away from things like medical costs, college, etc., while the gang still works normal jobs the rest of the year.
But even planning the next heist takes an inordinate amount of time, time the banking institutions and other businesses have to utilize fending off criminals on that one night.
If nothing else, Purge Night is big business. Protection is a must. Cleanup is a necessity. Honing your Purge skills is also a requirement lest you end up dead in the street before achieving any of your goals.
Purge Night purification is quite the endeavor. Zippy Maids would be one of the best jobs in the world for at least a week after Purge Night. Those with big bucks get their jobs done quickly, while others probably have to wait for help to arrive.
The opening scene reminding us that with every Purge must come a cleanse gave me a headache. How can someone start scrubbing blood out of the carpet when they haven’t removed the blood-dripping corpse on the tabletop? Maybe they get more money the longer they’re on the job.
The customer wasn’t a character we know, but seeing her at the head of the table with her two children was a hoot. What’s a little drop of blood on the placemat when you got rid of that excess bag of a husband you had just 24 hours earlier?
And on that note, Marcus and Michelle come to mind. At the hospital, Marcus, a physician, got all kinds of close to the man who was trying to Purge him. Thanks to his college-student son, Marcus discovered there is a dark-web hit on his arse that will remain in place until he’s dead.
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That leads me to Michelle, who was not nearly as freaked out about the whole affair as she should have been. Given the tabletop husband cleaned by Zippy Maids (and dumped unceremoniously at the curb for pickup), it’s hard not to wonder if that was a message.
Even the way Michelle took a large chug of her coffee while Marcus worriedly discussed his predicament left her with a giant question mark across her forehead. Does she want her husband dead?
The Purge is a very good incentive to stay true to your spouse.
Michelle: But you would never Purge anyone. Honey, you are not that kind of person.
Marcus: Well, maybe I’m changing. We almost died last night, and everything is different now. We need to know who did this. But whatever happens, I will keep you safe. I promise.
But why hire someone to kill your spouse? All you’d have to do to achieve the deadly act is to pretend you’re hunky-dory with them for the preceding year, plan a night in, and then ice ’em. It’s so ridiculously simple that it almost seems there should be a rule against it.
If you’re not safe within your own home with your significant other, then Purge Night could go up more than the 30% rise they experienced in the New Orleans district.
Why bother breaking up with someone if you can kill them and claim the life insurance money? But, that brings up a couple of other matters I’d like to discuss.
What kind of riders must there be on insurance policies for Purge Night? Could you even get insured for that time period? Surely, there are clauses that force the government to pay for the healthcare (it’s their dumb program) and against death benefits for murder unless someone pays a steep penalty.
And why do I even care? Because these are the kinds of things that seem very interesting indeed. Another? Animals. When Ryan was walking through the street and past a dog whining at the torso of its dead human companion, even Ryan got flustered.
OMG. That dog’s cry yanked my soul unlike any of the human deaths. He’s alone! How many pets get left alone after The Purge? Are they protected, or can people practice kill on them? Because no. Just no.
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And lest you think that Purging is easy, we have Delta aka Brian, the fraternity guy who killed his attacker during The Purge Season 2 Episode 1. He’s suffering from the weight of what happened to him on his shoulders.
Hey, what happens on Purge Night stays on Purge Night. But I did get pictures of the Suicide Bridge as proof.
Turner
If one guy like him can be so affected, imagine the horrors others are subjected to as they’re defiled or lose friends and family. How do people get their sanity back after Purge Night? It must provide a bountiful haul for psychologists.
Delta (is it OK if we keep calling him that because it’s more defining than Brian, don’t you think?) can’t sleep, he revisited the scene of his attack and subsequent Purge, and he’s getting vengeance by snuffing out innocents (or was he trying to help?) in Purge The Game at the local mall.
That’s one time that being good at a video game might be beneficial. You can’t train to Purge by actually Purging. Given what Ryan had to say about Tommy’s fate, committing crimes outside of Purge Night is a death sentence.
Doug: What’s gonna happen to ‘im?
Ryan: They’re gonna hold him over to the next Purge and then kill him.
Still, people probably can’t help themselves. Will Delta manage to keep it together for a year? If he can barely accept his fate 24 hours after it occurred, how will he get through another 363 days?
The same goes for Ryan and his band of bank robbers. They don’t have enough money, and now Ryan knows that the banks have gotten wise enough to keep their money off-site on Purge Night.
What do you do when every choice you could make seems like the wrong one?
Ryan
Will they get desperate enough to commit questionable acts off-Purge?
And with Esme’s fact-finding mission to determine what happened to Professor Drew, she stumbled upon what appears to be experiments that enhance people’s desires to act violently.
Not only did she uncover a recording of sessions between Drew and, perhaps, a student or patient, but she even found brain images to accompany them.
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Someone hushed up Drew because she was getting too close to something and that something must be very big with that kind of evidence. Since we’ve already assessed that Purge Night is big business, the NFFA probably has the idea that without that economic stimulus, the country would languish.
You can’t have that happen!
There are so many different routes that The Purge can take going forward, and if what we’ve seen so far is any indication, there will be a lot of surprises along the way.
Have you spent any time wondering about this NFFA Purge World? What do you think of the latest developments?
If you watch The Purge online, hurry on back and dump your thoughts in the comments. The idea behind The Purge has always been fascinating, but with these additional avenues to scrutinize, there is even more to discuss.
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Carissa Pavlica is the managing editor and a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She’s a member of the Broadcast Television Journalists Association (BTJA), enjoys mentoring writers, wine, and passionately discussing the nuances of television. Follow her on Twitter and email her here at TV Fanatic.